


Affinity

by gleefulmusings



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Supernatural, Xena: Warrior Princess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 11:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19333879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/gleefulmusings
Summary: af·fin·i·tyA natural attraction, liking, or feeling of kinship.A natural compatibility of one thing with another.An inherent similarity between persons or things.An attraction or force between particles or chemicals that causes them to combine.





	Affinity

Dean glanced over to his right, watching Sammy sleep with that stupid fucking plastic spoon hanging from his mouth, looking like a tool.

He resisted the urge to reach over and ruffle his hair. Sometimes Sam still looked like a twelve-year-old scrawny sasquatch, a mouthy brat who thought his older brother was the most awesome person walking and had hung the moon, back when Dean could fix any problem with a sleazy joke or a hug when John wasn’t watching.

He sighed and tightened his hands on the wheel, silently apologizing to the Impala for the force of his grip.  
  
There was so much he wanted to do.  
  
He wanted to yell at Sam to wake the fuck up and entertain him. He wanted the shadows beneath Sam’s eyes to go away, along with the nightmares. He wanted to go back in time and save Jess because, goddamn it, Sam deserved some fucking happiness. He wanted to find John and beat the hell out of him for never understanding who Sam was, for not even trying.   
  
He wanted this not to be Sam’s life.  
  
When Sam had gone off to Stanford, Dean had gotten drunk. John thought it was due to the pain of separation, like they were girls or something, but it was actually in celebration. Sure, he hated Sammy being gone, but it was okay because he was off doing cool shit like calculus, stuff Dean could never do.

He had been so proud of Sam and never understood why John wasn’t. Hell, maybe John was, but didn’t know how to say it. Whatever. But did he have to make Sam feel like shit for wanting a life?  
  
Sam wasn’t normal; they all knew that. That was why Dean wanted him to have a chance to grab any fucking slice of normal he could get.  
  
Sam was lost; scared of what he was and what he would become. Dean couldn’t do much about that but be the best brother he could be. And make sure anything that hurt Sam died bloody.  
  


* * *

 

“So if you want to kill the world, well, then, start with me. I’ve earned it.”  
  
“You think I won’t?”  
  
He couldn’t imagine her pain, what she was going through, winning Tara back only to have her gunned down right before her. He couldn’t imagine it, but he could feel it. Through her every pore, in every word, with every tendril of black hair flapping in the wind, he felt it.

And on a primal level, one he often paid more heed to than he should, he not only understood what she was trying to do, but approved. Why should the world survive when the most innocent of them kept dying for no good reason, for some stupid twist of fate or the capricious malice of a disinterested overseer? How could such losses go unpunished?  
  
But he wasn’t willing to extinguish the world because it had done him wrong.  
  
What she was doing was wrong, and if he knew it, then so did she, and that was what was important. Because were she in her right mind, she wouldn’t do this – not to him or Buffy or Dawn – if for no reason other than it wasn’t what Tara would want. She needed to remember that, and it was his job to remind her.

If he could take her anguish, take it into himself, he would, gladly. But she had to feel this loss and accept it. They had all lost someone they loved. And in the cases of he and Buffy, they had driven the final stake into the hearts of the very people they believed they couldn't live without.  
  
Part of him was so furious with her for allowing it to come to this, for allowing herself to  _become_  this, this monster who tried to murder the people who loved her the most. What made her grief so goddamn special?  
  
But he loved her. It was like breathing, like his heartbeat. Nothing she could ever say or do would change that.

Not even this.  
  


* * *

 

Part of her guilt regarding her mother’s death was that, prior to its happening, she had already begun moving away.

It wasn’t that she loved Joyce any less or didn’t view her as her mother in every way that mattered, but there had been resentment burgeoning beyond the pangs of adolescence, solidified when Dawn discovered what she truly was – or was not.

And now she mourned for Joyce on a level other than as her daughter; she mourned the loss of potential, all of the words she said in spite and those she hadn’t said at all. Until the day she died, her last memory of her mother would be her laying on an autopsy table.  
  
At least Buffy had come for her, then. Now she was so displaced in importance, no one had given a second thought to leaving a dead body in her home.  
  
She managed to pull Tara into her lap, softly stroking her hair, and realizing too late that, for all her whining and loneliness, she had a best friend. Someone on whom she could count for anything; of whom she could ask any question and receive a truthful reply; someone who would always make time for her, rather than penciling her in when it was convenient. All of that was gone now.  
  
She didn’t know where the others were and she didn’t care. She hoped they were out killing whoever had done this. She didn’t think about Willow’s loss, or of how close Tara and Buffy had gotten this year, or those secret looks she had witnessed passing between Xander and Tara. All she knew was that she kept losing people, important people in whom she had placed her trust and love.

And for the first time, the very first time, she understood the hell it was to be Buffy.  
  
So she held Tara and told her everything she hadn’t the courage to say before, and everything she had never gotten to tell her mother. And she wasn’t scared.  
  
She would stay. She would stay with Tara. She would stay with the others, and she would fight.  
  
  


* * *

 

There had been moments in life when she believed herself destined to be alone. She had welcomed it, allowing it to warm her heart like nothing else could, but in her darkest hours, the ache of loneliness had almost killed her, crushing her spirit more brutally than any warlord or god could ever hope to accomplish.

Friendship, love; these were detriments, weapons to be used against you. So she had learned to embrace isolation, choosing to believe it made her stronger, more self-reliant and self-aware, and she had risen farther than she had ever dreamed possible.  
  
And when it all came crashing down, when the desperation along with her conscience returned with a vengeance, there had been Hercules, and she had loved him in a way she hadn’t thought herself capable. He had opened her soul, broken her down and refashioned her into a human being. She had hated him for it then, hated herself for wanting it, but then she found Gabrielle.  
  
There wasn’t a word for what they were, though many had tried to label it, not understanding how two so supposedly different individuals could bond on so deep a level. Xena knew better than to question it, had no interest in dissecting it to make it conform to something that made sense to others.

Instead, she lived it, breathed it, and reveled in it, fighting fate and everything else that had threatened to tear it asunder.  
  
She had watched Gabrielle become a woman, a wife, a widow, a mother, a murderer, a pacifist, and a warrior. Gabrielle’s path, her journey, had been hers as well, and she had learned more from one naïve village girl than she ever had from the most powerful and dangerous people of her age.

Borias, Akemi, Cyrene, Alti, Lao Ma, Ares, Caesar, even Hercules; they were mere footnotes. For better or worse, she had loved them but, in the end, they were part of the path which had led her to Gabrielle, from whom she would never be parted.

Not even by death.


End file.
